William Pegram

William Ransom Johnson "Willie" Pegram (29 June 1841-2 April 1865) was a Colonel of the Confederate States Army and an artillery commander during the American Civil War. Like his older brother John Pegram, he was killed in the Virginia campaign of 1865.

Biography
William R.J. Pegram was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1841, the younger brother of John Pegram, and he was a law student at the University of Virginia when the American Civil War broke out in 1861. Pegram enlisted in an artillery battery of the Confederate States Army at the start of the war, and he was known for his scholarly looks and for his fearlessness in battle; Henry Heth once claimed that he was one of the few men that he knew who were happy in battle. Pegram fought in almost every major battle in which the Army of Northern Virginia fought, and both Heth and Richard H. Anderson requested for him to be promoted, and A.P. Hill confronted Robert E. Lee with these requests; Lee believed that Pegram, who was very young and was invaluable to the artillery, was needed where he was, and that he needed more age and experience to become a brigade commander. Pegram was devastated by the loss of his older brother John at Hatcher's Run in February 1865, but he would die in battle less than two months later. At the Battle of Five Forks, he defended his artillery battery until he was mortally wounded, and his death was a major blow to the Army of Northern Virginia, which lost its best gunner.